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All Sauced Up is one of our favorite shops on the Gatlinburg strip to visit. The store is filled with friendly workers, unique kitchen gadgets, and all sorts of tasty sauces to try. Be sure to visit on an empty stomach though, because you’re definitely going to try their samples which are plentiful and delicious!

I (Meredith) am a complete kitchen gadget junkie and love looking at the offerings from All Sauced Up. Looking for a Butter Boy? You can find him at All Sauced Up. Interested in fruit and vegetable containers? All Sauced Up has them. How about a special Table Saw cake cutter? Yep, you can get that at All Sauced Up too!

We also love to try the samples, but always make sure to strictly adhere to the rules of one sample per product per person (we are good sharebears after all!). Some of our favorites that we have purchased from All Sauced Up and enjoy at home to remind us of our trips to the Great Smokies are:

Italian Oil Spices – these are delicious and make a great addition to any Italian dinner bread

Peach Salsa – Sam is allergic to tomatoes, so this is Meredith-only enjoyment, but I have brought this salsa to family parties and everyone who tried it seemed to enjoy it as much as I do

Fruit Jellies – We love the fruit jelly + cream cheese options they offer in the store and love to make this combo at home to enjoy

If you get a little parched from enjoying the tasty samples, All Sauced Up also offers a variety of refreshing drinks to enjoy on strip, including Big Red Soda and Grape Nehi (Sam’s favorite).

Don’t forget to take your photo outside the store with their sign. Submit it to their website and they’ll feature your photo in the Customer Fun section. There’s something for everyone to enjoy at All Sauced Up and we highly recommend a stop in while you’re on the strip!

Despite our love for an area so full of outdoor beauty, we are not ones to participate in a lot of outdoor activities in Gatlinburg. Sam enjoys time outside, but I (Meredith) am much more an indoor girl. We recently started exploring the hiking trails in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park in the past couple of years. Our first real hike was to Laurel Falls, which is a great starter trail and very much worth the walk.

The hike from the road to the falls is about 2.6 miles round trip Sam purchased a hiking stick before we set out to the falls, which I highly suggest to anyone (especially beginners) planning a hike. The trail is fairly spacious, but a hiking stick is very helpful with steadying yourself when you need it, as the drop from the trail is quite steep. About 45 minutes into the hike, we started to wonder if we were ever going to make it to the falls, but we were assured by many people heading back down that the walk was worth it.

Was it ever! The view at the top was so beautiful I wished I could stay there all day. It was a bit crowded with everyone taking turns taking their photo in front of the falls, but that only slightly took away from beauty around. Be sure to take your camera when you set off on this trip so that you can ask a fellow hiker to take your photo as well. I also fell in love with the beautiful mountain laurel that was all along the trail on this week. I had never seen mountain laurel before and found it to be a wonderful delight!

Sam and I (Meredith) were on our 10th trip before trying out Little Tokyo. Slightly set off the strip in Pigeon Forge, it’s easy to miss this little restaurant for the brightly lit billboards and highly advertised restaurants. This gem gets great ratings on Trip Advisor, which led Sam to suggest that we might want to try it for dinner one evening.

Little Tokyo quickly shot to our favorites list and has been added to the many restaurants that can’t be missed during a trip to the area. There are two areas to the restaurant – a regular restaurant area and another room with hibachi grills where you will receive a show from one of the great chefs while they prepare your dinner. Sam and I chose to give the hibachi grill a try and joined two families at the tables, both of which were from the area. It’s always a lot of fun to hear others’ stories while on vacation and the hibachi grill gives you a great opportunity to chat with others.

We both enjoyed chicken meals and the highly generous portions not only filled us up for the evening but gave us enough leftovers for two more meals. The chef was highly attentive to the special needs of the diners. One was highly allergic to mushrooms and special care was taken to make sure no mushroom was cooked with any food that would touch her or her family’s plates. The meals included your choice of meat (or veggies), fried rice, and sautéed veggies. There was also a shrimp sauce offered on the table that kicked up the meal from great to awesome. I enjoyed a California roll (sushi) as well, which was delicious.

The entire meal was very reasonably priced compared to other hibachi grills we have eaten at before, coming in under $40 for two meals, two sodas, and a sushi roll. We had a slight miscommunication with part of our order and our waitress corrected the issue very promptly and kindly. We highly suggest Little Tokyo on your next trip to the Gatlinburg area!